Announcing an Opportunity for Training in Older Adult Ministries

Have you been appointed or assigned to a church where most of the congregation are older adults?

Do you find yourself wondering if such a congregation can thrive?

Do you want help? Some clues? Support?

If you answered “yes” to any or all of these questions, mark your calendar for August 18-21, 2025, and plan to attend the “Festival of Wisdom and Grace” at Lake Junaluska, North Carolina. If you want scholarship assistance, please contact Rev. Lisa Jean Hoefner, coordinator of older adult ministries, at [email protected]. (Everyone is responsible for the registration fee; scholarship funds will be available to subsidize room and board and some travel expenses.)

Read on to learn more about this opportunity!

For many congregations in the US, newly assigned pastors confront aging congregations with little understanding of the dynamics of older adult lives. Hence, they fail to see the potential of growing strong congregations through strengthening older adult ministries.

Too often, new clergy leaders and lay pastors are assigned to small-membership churches with aging members, and a downward spiral of discouragement ensues. This is not the way to start a lifetime of ministry, nor a way to grow faithful disciples and strong congregations that meet the needs of the communities they serve. Leadership training is essential for bringing energy and hope to these congregations.

“The Festival of Wisdom and Grace” is an annual event at Lake Junaluska in August. It has regularly attracted several hundred people involved in older adult ministries. Traditionally, this was a Southeastern Jurisdictional event, but it is now offered more widely by Lake Junaluska staff and a design team. This year, the event includes a track designed to train newer clergy and lay leaders of older adult ministries. United Methodist Discipleship Ministries is subsidizing this training. Leaders believe this track will build enthusiasm for new pathways to growth in discipleship among older adult congregations and the communities they serve.

The training track will meet concurrently with the existing “Festival of Wisdom and Grace.”. The richness of the total festival experience will enhance the learning and demonstrate the potential, variations, and expressions of ministry and discipleship that are possible. Plenary sessions, the opening reception and group-building time, worship, and keynote speakers will be available to all participants in the festival. The training track offers specifically focused workshops and some optional activity sessions.

Participants will hear best practices, be able to join cohorts of people already engaged in older adult ministries, receive wise counsel from seasoned leaders, and support one another in making plans for action steps upon returning home.

Continued contact through Zoom, emails, newsletters, and the United Methodist Older Adult Ministries Facebook page will build opportunities to share best practices, ask questions, and seek solutions to local situations together.

Interested people should apply for scholarships made possible by Discipleship Ministries by contacting Rev. Lisa Jean Hoefner, coordinator of older adult ministries, at [email protected].